My name is Jennifer Michelstein, and I'm a Program Manager on the Word team. I mainly work on academic features, like bibliographies and citations (see Joe Friend's blog) and equations.

In Word 2007, we took a ground-up approach to creating a new set of tools for editing and displaying equations. Here's a brief highlight of what's cool about the new Equation Builder:

• Equations are regular Word text (not objects), so they're integrated with regular Word formatting.
• High-quality display and typography: we're using TeX standards and a brand-new Math Font to produce great-looking equations
• Two input methods: UI and Linear Format (keyboard syntax)
• MathML support: now you can write an equation in Word, paste it into a calculating or graphing application, and get results!

Writing the equation feature was a huge undertaking. We had a highly talented group of individuals contributing, including Murray Sargent, who has written about the inner workings of the feature here.

In this blog entry, I'll introduce you to our two methods of equation input (three, if you include the Equations gallery). In future entries, I'll talk about other components of the feature, including typography, layout, breaking, alignment, and MathML.

UI-Based Entry

We've divided into two categories the types of elements that can be inserted in equations: symbols and structures. Symbols are sorted into categories by subject area, and within each category by frequency of use. (fun fact: in a recent presentation to equation writers, categorization by subject area instead of Unicode value was one of the most heavily applauded items)

Each category of structures is a dropdown gallery containing variants of that type. For example, the integral gallery contains different types of integrals (regular, surface, contour, and volume) with limits positioned in different locations.

Typing Equations via Linear Format

Linear Format, a keyboard-based syntax, is a new method of entering equations in Word. Linear Format uses a TeX-like notation for some mathematical objects and symbols, and the same mathematical syntax you'd see in a linear text entry field in simple cases (for example, a^2 for the superscript , or (a+b)/(b+c) for the fraction ).

It's important to note that there are two separate processes involved in converting strings to Professional format. The first, Math AutoCorrect, converts strings to symbols or groups of characters. Here's a quick demo of Math AutoCorrect.

The second is Formula AutoBuildup. Formula AutoBuildup takes linear strings such as a^2 or ∫_0^1 and converts them to Professional form. Rather than explain how Linear Format works, I'll show you some quick examples of how to write equations in Linear Format, and how it compares in speed to UI-based entry: first, with exponents and fractions, and then with an integral.

I encourage the equation writers out there to play with Linear Format. Since our Help topics on equations have not been posted yet, you may want some assistance learning fluency in Linear Format. Let me know what equations or structures about which you have questions, and I'll post video demos. You can read more about Linear Format and Formula AutoBuildup here.

Inserting a Saved Equation

When we watched users on site visits writing equations, we saw many people open old documents, copy equations, and paste them into their new document. Even if the equations were slightly different, finding these equations and repurposing them often saved time and effort. With that in mind, we used the Building Blocks framework to create a gallery of saved equations. Jon talked about Building Blocks for Cover Pages, Headers, and Footers in this post, and we'll write more about the Building Blocks framework in future posts. Here's a quick demo on inserting a saved equation from the gallery. You can easily save your own equations to the gallery, as is true for all Building Blocks.